


Enough To Be Getting On With

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Healthy Dysfunction, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, White Night, coping skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4695593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a quiet little thing. I know where it came from, for a change--just thinking about how much people tend to write about when life is dramatically good or dramatically bad, but not about those odd, disjointed moments of things not really gelling properly. And thinking about how much difference it makes if two people deal with those times well, or badly. Do people turn ordinary, human dysfunction into a melodrama, or do they navigate the waters with kindness and calm good sense?</p><p>This is a vote for kindness and calm good sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough To Be Getting On With

“Are you all right?”

Mycroft’s voice was worried. The way things were going, his concern scraped across Greg’s nerves like a knife skittering hard on fine china.

“Yes. Just having an off night. Going to get m’self some toast and a cuppa.”

“Do you want company?”

Hell no. “No, thanks.” Instead he would sit out on the back balcony and listen to the city—their city—and brood until he could not brood one minute more.

He slipped into the light cotton drawstring pajama bottoms he’d slipped off so optimistically earlier that night, tossed on his happi-coat, and padded barefoot to the kitchen. He turned on the single light under the cupboards nearest the electric kettle and toaster. He smiled wryly as he moved around in the dim kitchen, never hesitating or fearing he would not find what he sought. Mycroft kept the kitchen well-stocked, and had supplied Greg’s favorites ever since they’d started spending nights together. It took no time to find the sweet Portuguese bread Greg himself never kept on hand, or the glorious high-butterfat butter, or the little antique glass shaker filled with cinnamon and sugar that Mycroft apparently mixed himself.

Greg snorted under his breath as he shook plentiful swathes of cinnamon-sugar over his hot toast, watching it darken as the melted butter soaked in. “Made it himself with his own lily-white hands” seemed almost too close to the reverential feelings it triggered in him, and the truth was even he could see that was ridiculous. Mycroft ordered out for supplies, and it would take all of three minutes maximum to blend good turbinado sugar and high quality cinnamon and dump them into the little jar. Hell, Mycroft probably took longer to locate just the right jar, and Greg wasn’t even willing to bet on that.

A few minutes later he had his toast piled high on a paper towel, and an oversized mug of tea, and he’d settled down in his favorite wicker armchair out on the balcony. He put his feet up on the big wicker ottoman and sighed in comfort if not contentment as he spread his toes and felt the light night breeze trickle between them.

That was one thing about Mycroft’s—even a bad case of the dumps was a bad case of the dumps in one hell of a comfortable setting. If you set “miserable and cold and broke and hungry in the pouring rain without an overcoat” as one end of the “miserable” spectrum, being miserable at Mycroft’s fit neatly on the other end. The only thing left to feel miserable about was being miserable.

About which he could do nothing. He sighed, drank down a scalding mouthful of tea, and hunkered deep in his armchair.

All relationships have rules. All have assumed roles. They may switch around, but there is an underlying logic that may  look dysfunctional to the outsider, but which allows the those involved to at least feel sure of their choreography as they stumble through their days together.

In Greg and Mycroft’s relationship, Mycroft was the smart one. Greg was the dogged one, willing to plod on when even Mycroft—who was quite stubborn and committed in his own right—whined that enough was enough and that they were well and truly beaten. Mycroft was the shy one. Greg was the lad’s lad who could walk into a strange bar in the wrong part of London and by night’s end have a half-dozen mates and another dozen who’d at least declare him a good enough sort. Mycroft was the cautious one. Greg, in the end, had just a bit more of Sherlock and John’s wild infatuation for risk and danger. Under other circumstances Greg would have run with the bulls at Pamplona—and Mycroft would have stood ready with an emergency medical team, scowling and gnawing his knuckles until Greg surfaced at the end of the run alive and whole.

Greg didn’t like it when his mind betrayed him and he tumbled out of his assigned role. He didn’t know what to do, and if he wasn’t as burdened with angst as Mycroft could be, he also didn’t have Mycroft’s skill with words and deduction to sort out what was wrong and communicate it with clarity. Tonight, for example, he felt like a small child clutching a hurt he couldn’t even quite locate, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

It pissed him off.

He drank more tea, and nibbled, mouse-like, at a corner of his cinnamon toast. He scowled.

Things had been going well. He’d longed for Mycroft all afternoon. They’d been able to rendezvous at Mycroft’s flat for dinner, and both had mutually looked forward to following that with “whatever.” They got a lot of very interesting mileage out of “whatever” most nights. His anticipation had been high.

They’d eaten, slowly feeling the world drop away from them, replaced by the precious cocoon of their own privacy. They’d cleared up, and drifted to first the bathroom, where they’d showered, then to the bedroom, where they’d put on barely enough to warrant taking back off…and that mainly for the fun of the mutual strip tease to follow. They’d lain together on the bed, beginning the shared temptation, dropping into sync, feeling the tug and tide of their own desire begin to rise and flow. And then—

Mycroft, Greg thought, sullenly. This was Mycroft’s role—the nights his mind was too much with him, betraying desire and pulling him out of the meld. It was Mycroft’s part, not his. And yet he’d felt it—his mind suddenly turned at right-angles to desire, his senses at odds with his intended goals. Somehow his mind had stepped entirely outside their lovemaking, seeing each move dispassionately from a distance, with no answering response. His own actions became rote and dull. Mycroft’s touches, usually so welcome, seemed invasive and crass and even a bit creepy.

Greg’s erection fled. No attempt to lure it back succeeded. He’d wanted to offer recompense—a blow-job, even a hand-job—but something in him had rebelled at even that limited intimacy. He’d muttered his apologies, headed for the bathroom, wiped himself with a flannel, and wondered blankly what the hell was wrong.

It hadn’t been a bad day. He wasn’t burdened with some tragic case that had gutted him to the soul. Mycroft hadn’t managed to piss him off for days—which given his own ability for peevishness was saying something, though it was seldom very serious. They got on together, good times and bad, but even so, this was a better time than most.

He had no idea what had happened. He just knew he hated it with a blind, muddled misery that reminded him of an injured animal, sick, head swinging in dull confusion. This wasn’t his role. Mike—sometimes Mike’s mind stepped on the hem of his own desire, tripping him up. Mike’s complex, labyrinthine feelings tangled themselves into kitten-knots of mental yarn. Mike’s always shy, too-aware sexuality caught sight of itself in the mirror of his own awareness and ran away screaming and blushing.

Greg was the hearty lad, though. That kind of self-defeating awareness was not his role.

He cradled his tea mug, nearly empty now, against his stomach, and looked out over the back garden and at the next row of buildings. The flat didn’t have the best view. But that was partly by intent. Mycroft and his team had selected a building with poor sight lines to and from anything of interest, with trees blocking a sniper’s telescopic targeting. He could see the glow of the city, and the taller towers, and the dark lace of the tree tops where they were outlined between buildings. If he went to the edge and looked down, he’d see the little handkerchief back garden, nicely kept by the couple in the ground-floor flat.

“All shade plants, of course,” Mycroft had said casually, the first time he’d had Greg over to share dinner. “Violas, camellias. Incredible begonias. Fuchsia and bleeding heart. And moss—moss over everything.”

Greg had considered that magical—a reminder of visits to his gran in Somerset as a boy. His only other experience of moss was of the nasty, slippery, dull patches that grew up in back courtyards, inching over hard pavement and making a copper slip and bruise his knee when in hot pursuit.

He drank the last of the tea. He scowled. He should go back to bed now. He had work in the morning. And poor Mike would be lying there, alone, with no idea what was wrong. He’d worry, too. Mike was a worrier. He’d think something was wrong with Greg. Or that he’d done something wrong that had set Greg off. Or…

“You need more tea.”

Mycroft’s voice was soft, tinged as usual with the faintest sound of laughter, as though he was fighting back a quip. That was Mike for you—he faced the world with wit, as a cavalier faced it with fine lace collars and superb sword skills. Mycroft’s wit was his valor made manifest.

Greg grunted, embarrassed. The tea was welcome. So was the lover. But he was still no closer to knowing what was wrong, or what had happened. He held up his mug, silent, and waited as Mycroft filled it from a newly-brewed hot tea pot.

“Mind if I snatch that last piece of toast?” Mycroft asked as he poured himself a cup, and put both cup and pot on a nearby table. Then he sat on the ottoman, bum pressing against Greg’s ankles in mildly friendly fashion.

“Go ahead. Three half-slices seems to have been enough.”

Mycroft grunted a contended little grunt, and took the slice, nibbling as delicately as Greg had. “Mmmm,” he said. “I always forget how soothing cinnamon toast can be.” He nibbled more, then sipped his tea. One hand dropped down, and he stroked Greg’s shin.

Without wanting to, or meaning to, Greg pulled away.

The silence was unhappy. Mycroft sighed, then said, warily, “Do you want the guest room, tonight?”

Greg shrugged, unsure his lover could see the motion in the dark, and unable to care. “I…don’t know.”

“Mmmm. Nothing I can help with?”

Greg scoffed. “Nothing I even understand. Just—everything was fine, and then I fell out of it.”

God bless Mycroft, he thought, as the other man nodded in calm response. He found a smile blooming for the first time since his mind had jumped the tracks. He studied his lover’s silhouette, dark against the indirect glow of the city beyond. Mike's hair stood up in elf-locks. His nose was a beak Greg would never mistake. His chin was both firm and sharp. His posture, even in his own flat at God-past-two in the morning, was impeccable.

Greg risked turning his ankle and stroking Mycroft’s bum with his big toe. “I’ll come about, love,” he said. Granted it was more in hope than conviction at the moment—but history suggested that whatever was wrong, it would pass.

“I just want to do what’s…right…” Mycroft said, and Greg smiled again to hear the familiar thread of fretful concern and responsibility in his lover’s voice.

“Never mind,” he said. “I think I’m picking up your habits. Tripped over my own brains, so near as I can tell.”

“What?”

“Fell out of step and the next thing I knew I was watching us fucking like bunnies—but not part of it. Bit off-putting, yeah?”

Mycroft snorted, and his hand found Greg’s ankle again. His long fingers wrapped around Greg’s neat, solid bones, and he squeezed affectionately. “Ah. Yes. I’ve experienced that.”

“Nothing you did,” Greg assured him. “So near as I can figure, nothing I did, either. Just—“

“It happens,” Mycroft said, and the worry seeped out of his voice. “Do you want to stay here? Go home? You’re welcome back to bed, but—I don’t want to pressure you.”

Greg stretched, and drank down the hot, fresh tea. He rolled it over in his mind, finding to his surprise that the worst had passed. “I’m still not back to where I was,” he said, apologizing. “I’m afraid I’m dead useless tonight.”

He could actually hear the smile in Mycroft’s voice. “You’re never useless.”

Unstated, but shared, was the certainty that, somehow, they’d both changed each other’s lives, each triggering a catalytic reaction in the other such that, simply by sharing space and time, by sharing thoughts and words, they came away changed—and changed in ways that eased a hungry need in them.

Greg grunted a bashful agreement, then downed the remainder of the tea. He put the cup on the table, and reached out for Mycroft. “Gimme a hand up, then,” he said, voice gruff. “Might as well see each other to sleep, yeah?”

Mycroft’s hand gripped his, and held firm as Greg levered himself out of the armchair. He didn’t even suggest they should take their tea things back inside.

Silent, they walked through the dark flat. Silent they slid between the sheets.

Silent, Greg groped until he found Mycroft’s hand. He threaded his fingers through his lover's. Some small part of him still stood aloof, watching, untouched. But even that cool, exiled part of him nodded in satisfaction, and noted that success was not just what happened when things went well—it was how they reacted when things went badly. On the whole the cold, observing portion of his mind concluded that they had reacted very well.

That being so, Greg fell asleep, his lover’s hand in his and his ankle hooked around Mycroft’s foot. They both missed the alarm the next morning—but they dealt with that well, too. Whatever they had between them, it was good enough to be getting on with.


End file.
